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A CERIC Media Relations Training Program for Career Development Professionals

Free Online Course + Peer-Support Community
Are you interested in adding your expert take on career and workforce issues in the headlines?
Do you want to see your program, project or organization profiled by the media in your community?
Wondered what you can do to increase the visibility of career development services nationally?
If you answered, yes (or even maybe!), read on. CERIC is pleased to introduce free online media training with one of Canada’s foremost media authorities, Keka DasGupta.
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Who Should Attend

Any career development or related professional in Canada who wants to advance their career development messages and build profile in the media. Whether you have experience in this area or not, this foundational training will allow you to build or enhance your skills, confidence – and results with the news media.

🌎 Not in Canada? This program is tailored to the Canadian media landscape – but is open to any career development practitioners internationally.

This program includes two components

Online “on-demand” training course

Attendees will have access to a custom media training course for career development professionals. Using the Kajabi platform, this includes video lessons from Keka, email pitch templates, examples of real-life pitches that have landed people in the news, all with a focused lens on career development.  

The training consists of approximately 60 minutes of content (chunked into shorter videos). With reflective prompts and exercises, you should plan for 3 hours to complete the course. You will receive a certificate upon completion 

Office Hours have now concluded

Live bi-monthly “Office Hours” Q&A sessions (ongoing support)

This training is specifically designed to teach career development professionals across Canada how to:
  • Identify newsworthy media opportunities – understanding when and how the media may be interested in interviewing you on conversations related to career development 
  • Successfully pitch the media with your career development story ideas and insights to “land” the news interview  
  • Develop a target media list, write a compelling, customized email “pitch”, follow-up with media and prepare for the interview 
  • Implement tips and best practices on how to maximize the impact of your time in the news spotlight – how to clearly communicate messages in a very short amount of time 
  • Understand how radio and TV interviews differ from print/online interviews, and how to make the most of each medium 
  • Follow up to help establish longer-lasting relationships with media, so they continue to call you back for insightful commentary 

Why offer this program?

CERIC is interested in advancing conversations on career development across Canada in the news and editorial spaces. With this training, we are enabling and encouraging more voices to promote the value of career development – both for individual Canadians as well as for the economy and society more broadly. At the same time, CERIC is committed to supporting career development professionals in building their competencies and empowering them to showcase their expertise. 

How can you benefit from attending?

The career development field is diverse and multi-sectoral. As such, there are many benefits and opportunities with this Media Relations Training Program. Just a few examples: 

  • Non-profit agencies: you can create visibility with your funders around your impact and increase awareness of your services among community members 
  • Post-secondary career centres: you can gain the attention of employers and partners for student recruitment or offering co-ops and internships 
  • Private career coaches: you can promote Canadians taking a proactive role in growing their careers and the value of engaging with a career professional 

All career development professionals participating in this program will benefit by learning how to be influential thought leaders, raising your profile as individuals as well as that of your organizations. This training also represents an important part of your own career development as you establish or expand your interdisciplinary skills related to media relations. These skills include research, communication, adaptability, creativity and leadership – all highly transferable! 

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Keka DasGupta has worked in the public relations (PR) profession for 24 years, working with world-renowned brands such as: IKEA, Nike, Disney, Mercedes-Benz, American Express, Johnson & Johnson, etc. She has also worked with numerous charities, not-for-profits, small businesses and independent experts. She has taught this content to leaders across a wide spectrum of industries (including IKEA, Capital One, Co-operators, Mercedes-Benz, Schick, Schwarzkopf, and many more), and has also served as a corporate and crisis spokesperson for IKEA Canada, when she worked in-house for the company (here is an example of her appearance on BT almost 20 years ago!). Keka walks the talk and uses her own strategies today for her company as well. Here is an interview she did on Quiet Leadership with Breakfast Television again this past year. She was also featured in The Globe and Mail on this topic.  

Keka offers real-life examples of pitching strategies that have worked, so it becomes much easier for attendees to envision success for themselves. She takes the potential intimidation and overwhelm away and inspires and motivates attendees to take immediate and sustaining action. 

What Professionals Are Saying About Keka’s Media Training

One of our constant concerns as CDPs is public awareness about our field and the work we do. Personally, I have struggled with that, as well when people around me don’t fully understand what CDPs do – we don’t often find the right language (and energy) to fully explain it. This course is definitely opening doors for new possibilities and inspiring us to participate in elevating career development’s impact. Thank you Keka and CERIC!

This should be required training for all career practitioners whether they plan to pitch or not. The insights go well beyond that.

Thank you so much for this lovely workshop. Our team took the training as a small group of three (two PR members and one Career Development Practitioner) as an opportunity to discuss and learn how best to promote our in-house Career Development services.
I find the training to be so helpful, and Keka is a natural instructor. I am so lucky to have met her and to have been introduced to CERIC. It is invigorating to meet new people and get a Canadian perspective on things. I have already signed up for the conference in January.
I appreciated the flow and delivery of this information. The topics were broken down in a way that made it easy to take the information in, and each section was short, concise and well laid out. I’ll be spending more time with the materials I’ve downloaded and expect to reference them often as I work to gain some mastery with these new skills. Thank you so much!
I like her welcoming and friendly approach to teaching. It makes learning extremely easy and simple to follow. The short videos are excellent. She inspires me as a woman. Thank you
I used to work in media and this was fresh, relevant material that will help our media communications in a very tangible way. Great stuff.
Keka is incredibly skilled at identifying how expertise can translate into compelling content, writing a pitch that grabs attention, and decoding what journalists want and need from good sources. After attending a workshop with Keka, I was selected to write a weekly small business column in the Toronto Star for a few years. Today, I am regularly asked to comment on careers topics by various print, radio and TV outlets, with more than 60 appearances. I rely on Keka’s wise counsel and value her insights, expertise and genuine care for Challenge Factory’s brand and impact.
Keka is such an expert when it comes to public relations and all things related to pitching the media. The ideas, strategies and techniques she shared with me helped me not only secure one news interview but actually four on major stations and channels like Breakfast Television, CBC, CTV and CityNews and multiple written articles as well. She discussed how to properly pitch the producers over email in a way that will stand out and actually get their attention and a response. She taught me how to write effective press releases, how to find the contact information for the people you should be getting in front of when you have an idea or a story worth sharing with the media. And the best part is the things that she teaches you will be a skill that you’ll have for the rest of your life.
I was super blessed to be able to work with Keka. It was the most incredible time. She was so amazing and powerful. Definitely Keka has this skill of being able to really truly understand what you’re about. She’s able to frame it. That’s what she’s done with me in terms of how I would present my story and present my cause to make it relatable to everyone so that I could get press. Thanks to her and her feedback on honing the message and getting clarity, I was able to get several different segments on TV… and she’ll do that with you as well.